MELBOURNE, May 20: Australia’s triangular one-day cricket series, which has been played since the 1979-80 season, has been scrapped in favour of two five-match series against the visiting New Zealand and South African sides.

The decision, which had been expected, was confirmed when Cricket Australia (CA) announced its domestic international programme on Tuesday.

CA chief executive James Sutherland said he expected the two five-match series to generate immense public interest, even if the fourth and fifth matches were dead rubbers.

“There is huge demand for the Australian public to watch the Australian team play, no matter where they play,” Sutherland told reporters.

“That level of anticipation no matter where the series is alive or not is there, [especially] when you consider the [Australian] team only comes once or twice to each capital city.

“The anticipation for each match will be there and I’m sure that ticket sales will reflect that. Hopefully those series will be well fought and go to the wire, but we can’t control that.”

The triangular series, which had witnessed a drop off in interest particularly with matches not involving Australia, was first played between West Indies, Australia and England during the 1979-80 season.

Australia had generally dominated the competition, though they had lost the finals of the last two series to England and India.

Ricky Ponting’s team will open the season with two Tests against New Zealand in Brisbane and Adelaide before Daniel Vettori’s side return home for their own programme.

New Zealand will return for five One-day Internationals in early February, after Australia have completed a three-Test, five One-day International programme against South Africa.

The schedule also includes three Twenty20 Internationals, two against South Africa and one against New Zealand.

“There is no disputing the popularity and the level of public interest in Twenty20 is very high,” Sutherland added.

“I think we have got it just about right for Twenty20.

“Our position has always been with Twenty20 cricket is that we see great opportunity at the domestic level...and we anticipate that will grow, so we don’t want to overdo Twenty20 cricket on the international scene.”

New Zealand schedule:

Nov 13-16: v New South Wales (Sydney).

Nov 20-24: First Test (Brisbane).

Nov 28-Dec 2: Second Test (Adelaide).

Feb 1: First ODI (Perth, D/N).

Feb 6: Second ODI (Melbourne, D/N).

Feb 8: Third ODI (Sydney, D/N).

Feb 10: Fourth ODI (Adelaide, D/N).

Feb 13: Fifth ODI (Brisbane, D/N).

Feb 15: One-off Twenty20 International (Sydney, D/N).

South Africa schedule:

Dec 6-8: v Western Australia (Perth).

Dec 12-16: First Test (Perth).

Dec 20-22: v Tasmania (Hobart).

Dec 26-30: Second Test (Melbourne).

Jan 3-7: Third Test (Sydney).

Jan 11: First Twenty20 International (Melbourne, D/N).

Jan 13: Second Twenty20 International (Brisbane, D/N).

Jan 16: First ODI (Melbourne, D/N).

Jan 18: Second ODI (Hobart).

Jan 23: Third ODI (Sydney, D/N).

Jan 26: Fourth ODI (Adelaide, D/N).

Jan 30: Fifth ODI (Perth, D/N).—Reuters